


there is no mathematics to love and loss

by orphan_account



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Byleth is a demon, F/F, F/M, General spoilers, M/M, Post-Time Skip, Pre-Time Skip, Slow Burn, byleth is a matryoshka doll of identities, dimitri tries his best but we all know how that ends up for him usually, i dunno man why does dimitri only get to be a monster, let byleth grieve 2k19, not really but i digress, so like
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 12:14:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20994632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In the wake of loss and vengeance, Byleth finds himself split in two: one half filled to the brim with love and emotion and the other overflowing with anger and wrath. They each hook into his heart and soul and pull in different directions, threatening to snap at the sliver what he once thought of himself to be true.





	there is no mathematics to love and loss

His father is dead, and the sky mourns with him.

Jeralt is still warm in his arms, his cragged face smoothed of the pain that wracked him moments before. His blood oozes into the skirt of Byleth's tunic, sticky and staining the fabric down to his trousers.

He doesn't know how long he sits there, but by the time he feels the gentle prod of Dimitri's hand at his shoulder, the rain has softened into a fine mist. Dimitri's hair is plastered to his forehead, brows scrunched in a grief that Byleth thinks viciously is only a fraction of his own. 

Byleth turns away from him, gathering his father's body closer to his chest and pressing his ear against his frozen heart. “Leave me be,” he whispers into Jeralt's hair. A new wave of tears spill from his eyes. “Please.”

Dimitri's hands find his, trembling and cold beneath the worn leather of his gloves. “I'm afraid I can't do that, Professor,” his voice is softer than it usually is, cautious and slow, like talking to a spooked deer. His shaky fingers pry Byleth's from where they're fisted into Jeralt's tunic. “You need to return to the monastery. You're not well. And... and we need to attend to the Captain.”

Anger, hot and heady, rushes through him. “Do you plan to take him to the infirmary?” He hisses, shoving Dimitri's hands, his prying, intruding hands away from where they do not belong. “Do you plan to have Manuela patch him up and send him on his merry way?” 

Dimitri flinches, but reaches for him nevertheless. “You know what I mean, Professor,” he says. His fingers graze Byleth's again, hesitant and gentle, but at the same time unwelcome and undeserving. Byleth makes to scramble away, but his boot skids against the slippery grass beneath him, twisting his ankle, and sending him tumbling. Jeralt's body slides out of his arms and careens into the mud with a wet slap. 

A cry tears itself from Byleth's throat. He wants to take him into his arms again, press his fists against his chest, pump blood through his father's body with his bare hands and beg for forgiveness that he will never receive, but Dimitri's arms wrapping around him stops him in his tracks. He thrashes against him, until they both join his father in the mud. 

“I'm sorry,” Dimitri presses his forehead against the back of his neck, sliding his left hand to hook into Byleth's right shoulder and sandwiches him against the ground. He holds him tighter and tighter until Byleth chokes on his anger, his tears, and slumps into the dirt. “I'm so sorry,” he whispers again, and again, and again.

“... Me too.”

* * *

Despite Dimitri's protests, Byleth carries his father's body back to the monastery. Sothis is silent, but he knows that she's there. She floats behind him, and he can see her spindly, ghostly arms wrapped around his neck in a comfort that he can’t feel. 

Jeralt has grown stiff and heavy in his arms. Byleth’s ankle throbs with each step. He ignores the looks of pity on his students' faces, shoves off sympathetic touches, and growls at the faceless knights who offer to take Jeralt from him and relieve him of his "burden_ " _. Alois is the one who finally manages to separate them. 

“I'll take care of him,” he promises, and Byleth believes him. Alois claps a strong hand against the back of Byleth's neck and presses his forehead to his, a gesture so reminiscent of his father that Byleth bursts into tears again. He wipes at his eyes and his leaky nose, streaking dirt and blood against his face.

Dimitri is at his side once more, taking him by the elbow and leading him toward the infirmary. Manuela's fussing is silent and subdued. Her hands release spurts of warm magic, healing the shallow cuts and gashes where they poke out from his torn clothing. She cups her fingers around the back of his head and gently untangles a knot of hair plastered against a wound from a brawler's iron gauntlet. She hums as she works, a habit he knows she's never outgrown from her time at the opera. 

He closes his eyes, leaning into her touch ever so slightly. Her voice heals just as much as her hands, soft reverberations that soothe the rough waters of his mind if only for a moment.

All too soon, she stops. If Byleth were a normal man, he supposes he would take her by the hand and beg her to continue, to make the pain stop. But he has never been normal. His dead heart aches at the silence. 

She wraps his ankle tightly in a roll of bandages. “You shouldn't have walked back on it, Byleth,” Manuela tuts. “Especially not while--” she cuts herself off and clears her throat. “Well, just promise me that you’ll keep it elevated, alright?” She looks up at him from where she’s knelt down at his feet and gives his bound foot a soft pat. “I’ve done what I can with my magic, but there’s definitely a deep strain in the muscle that you’ll need to be wary of.” 

Byleth doesn't particularly pay attention after that. The squall she had quelled moments before starts rushing in his ears again. Salty rain threatens to rush from his eyes. He blinks it away, but the trickle of it stings his nose and heats his face. He watches blankly as she turns to her apothecary table and rustles through its endless drawers. She finally pulls a tiny bottle from one of them, pressing it into Byleth’s hand. The bottle is glass, filled to the brim with little blue pills. 

Manuela is saying something that Byleth can't hear, gesticulating with her hands and pointing at the smattering of words on the label that he can’t read, wrapping her fingers around his in a grip that he can’t feel, and looking into his eyes with an expression that he can’t see. 

Dimitri shifts from where he positioned himself at the door and takes the bottle from Manuela with a bow. He turns to Byleth, slides himself under his arm, hooks his fingers into the loops of his belt, and leads him down the stairs and through the courtyard until they finally reach his quarters. 

His bed is unmade and his desk is a mess of ungraded tests and essays. Dimitri sits him at his desk chair. 

“You should head to the baths, Professor,” Dimitri says quietly, thumbing at Byleth’s ruined coat. Byleth looks down at his tunic. A mess of mud, blood, and dust stains it a mottled brown. He can feel dried filth sticking to his hair, face, and the sides of his neck. “I can’t imagine you would be comfortable sleeping like that.”

Byleth wants to tell him that doesn’t _ care _ about comfort, that he doesn’t _ deserve _ comfort, not while his father’s killer is still out there but the fight in him dies at the look in Dimitri’s eyes. He simply shakes his head at him instead. “Too many people,” he says quietly. _ I don’t want anyone’s pity. _

There's a pregnant pause between them. “Can you at least change out of your clothes?” Byleth stares at him for a beat before nodding. He unlatches the odds and ends of his armor, letting the pieces fall to the floor with a clatter. He pulls off layers of clothing until he stands there in his undershirt and breeches, which are remarkably untouched. 

Dimitri watches him silently before taking him by the hand and leads him to the bed. He putters about the room, looking this way and that until he sweeps over to the windowsill, where Byleth keeps his few simple luxuries: the tea set Ferdinand gifted to him all those months ago, a selection of teas, and a collection of scented shampoos and soaps given to him by Hilda as thanks for curving a grade for her. Byleth hasn't touched them much. “You won't _ believe _ the amount of work I put into making these, Professor!” Hilda had tittered, dropping her basket of goods into his hands with an exasperation that told him that she may have been telling the truth. She gave him a wink and patted the back of his hand. “You better make these last, okay? They're one of a kind.” 

Later, Byleth had spent the rest of the evening uncapping each bottle, inhaling each with care. Each had a different floral scent, all harvested from the greenhouse. Tiny doodles of roses, daisies, sweet peas and more decorated the labels. Sothis floated beside him, gushing about all the scents she would wear if she had a body. She asked about every bottle; what did it smell like? which one was his favorite? which one would he use first? 

In the end, he had put the basket aside, reluctant to waste any of Hilda’s hard work (“_ Extremely _ hard work, Professor! Just look at what it did to my delicate little hands! It'll take _ ages _ to get the dirt out from under my nails.”). Now, he watches Dimitri shuffle through the basket, picking up and uncapping each, giving them tentative sniffs.

He cannot see which one he chooses through the broad expanse of Dimitri’s back, but he turns to him, bottle in one hand, and the tea kettle in the other. He sets both next to him on the bed and tears off an unstained section of his cape. The soap bottle he's picked reeks of lavender.

“I'm afraid I don't know much about horticulture,” Dimitri says quietly. He pours a bit of the unsteeped water from the kettle into his scrap of cape and lathers it with the soap. “But Dedue tells me that lavender is calming. Try to inhale deeply, Professor.” He places his free hand against Byleth’s cheek, curling his fingers against the back of his ear. With his other, he scrubs at his face with the damp cloth, wiping away the muck that has caked onto his face. Lavender invades his senses, clinging to the hairs inside his nose, stinging his eyes, and caking his tongue. It's almost too much--he chokes on flower petals and wraps his hand around Dimitri’s wrist to stop him. 

“Forgive me,” Dimitri says sheepishly. “I-I didn't realize it would be that strong. I can choose a different one--” He makes to get off the bed and go back to the basket, but Byleth tightens his grip on his wrist instead.

“It's fine,” he says simply. Despite it all, he can feel the anxious, angry haze in his mind calm itself. “You may continue.” 

Dimitri nods and brings the cloth back to his face. He rubs gently at his eyes, clearing the tear tracks that have no doubt carved grooves into the grime. Dimitri works silently, pausing every now and then to tear off a new section of cloth.

After what feels like forever, Dimitri pulls away and wipes the suds from Byleth’s face. His cape is a mess of dirt, bubbles and water. He unlatches its tattered remnants from his shoulder and drops it into the pile of soiled clothes at their feet. “I think that's the best I can do for you, Professor, that is if you truly insist on not going to the baths.”

Byleth reaches up to his face, running his fingers along the clean skin and inhales the now muted scent of lavender. It's dulled into a pleasant murmur in the back of his senses. “Thank you, Dimitri,” Byleth says. A fresh wave of salt stings his eyes in the lilt of the silence. Byleth presses his fingers into the corners of his eyes and clenches them shut. “You shouldn’t have to see me like this,” he wetly murmurs into the heels of his palms. “I’ll make it up to you someday.”

He feels Dimitri wrap his fingers around his wrists and pull his hands from his face. “There’s no need to fret over it, Professor.” His eyes are soft around the edges and usual stern slant of his eyebrows are relaxed. “I promise to do whatever I can to help you.”

Byleth focuses his gaze on Dimitri’s hands at his wrist. It’s gentle--as gentle as Dimitri’s monstrous strength can allow him. Despite his restraint, Byleth can feel the subtle grind of bone against bone under Dimitri’s fingers. Suddenly, horribly, he wants Dimitri to tighten his grip, to snap his wrists in two, severing muscle and vein so that he can bleed out on the sheets. 

Byleth wrenches himself free, scratching his nails against the insides of his wrist. Dimitri sits there, his hands suspended in mid-air. His fingers twitch toward him, but he lets them drop to his lap. “You should rest, Professor.” He reaches into a pocket and pulls the bottle of pills given to him by Manuela.

“Professor Manuela says that this should help you sleep,” he shakes one of the pills into his palm and drops it into Byleth's. “Once a day before going to bed, and no more.”

Byleth stares at the pill. It’s a loud, obnoxious powder blue against his skin. He rolls it in between his forefingers a few times before slipping it between his lips. It dissolves against his tongue and slithers down his throat. 

“...Do you need me to stay?” Dimitri whispers. 

“I don't need anything,” Byleth says quickly. Too quickly it seems, as he watches the corners of Dimitri’s mouth curdle like spoiled milk. 

“Very well,” Dimitri inclines his head to him in a short bow and gathers the remains of his cape and Byleth’s clothing. “I'll have these laundered and mended for you.” He drapes them over an arm and makes his way to the door. He pauses when he wraps a hand around the doorknob. “Please try and sleep, Professor. I'll come to see you in the morning.” He disappears through the door and shuts it with a soft click.

“Are you alright?” Sothis’ soft, melodic voice rings in his ear. She appears beside him, sitting atop the sheets. He cannot feel it, not truly, but she places a hand, lighter than air, on top of his. Her other hand presses against his cheek. “It will do you no good to keep your tears inside, little one.” 

Byleth takes a watery breath, covering his face with his hands to try and quell the burning in his eyes. 

“If you must weep, then weep,” Sothis says gently. “I will be here for you.” 

All at once, the dam breaks. He turns to her, burying his face into her lap and _ wails _, uncaring of Dedue next door and of the students no doubt meandering past his quarters on their way to their dorms. 

Although he knows it to be impossible, he relishes the ghostly stroke of Sothis’ hands running through his hair and the sound of her gentle humming drowning out his cries. 

“I will be here for you,” she whispers again. “Always.”


End file.
